Wizard (Marvel Comics)
This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Wizard | |
---|---|
Publication information | |
Publisher | Marvel Comics |
First appearance | Strange Tales #102 (November 1962)[1] |
Created by | Stan Lee (writer) Larry Lieber (writer) Jack Kirby (artist) |
In-story information | |
Alter ego | Bentley Wittman |
Species | Human |
Team affiliations | Frightful Four Intelligencia |
Notable aliases | The Wingless Wizard |
Abilities |
|
The Wizard (Bentley Wittman), also known as the Wingless Wizard, is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He first appeared as an enemy for the Human Torch.
Publication history
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (March 2015) |
The Wizard's first appearance was in Strange Tales #102 (November 1962) and was created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby.[2]
Fictional character biography
This section may contain an excessive amount of intricate detail that may interest only a particular audience. |
Bentley Wittman grew up possessing near-superhuman levels of genius and was a child prodigy and chess champion. As an adult, he became an inventor of great renown, selling his futuristic inventions to the wealthy and becoming quite rich. He became known as the Wizard by legally assuming this stage name and using his advanced scientific inventions to perform feats of "magic" as a stage magician and escape artist.
Intellectually bored, however, he decided to become a professional criminal and defeat Johnny Storm, who had just appeared to the world as the Human Torch.[3] Pretending to be a victim by pretending his attempt to use a new drill had gone wrong and he was trapped, he really had enough air for weeks, he was rescued by the Torch and invited him to his high-tech, futuristic mansion on Long Island. There he captured the Torch with ease by pretending to take a three-dimensional photo, but really squirting a liquid onto the Torch. The Torch was then locked in an asbestos cell at gunpoint. The Wizard impersonated the Torch, launching a crime spree to destroy the Torch's reputation. However, the Torch escaped and with help from the Invisible Girl, got photos showing the Wizard had impersonated him and the Wizard was sent to prison.[4]
The Wizard had a rematch with the Human Torch before long, escaping from prison using a chemical which melted through stone. He got to his house and used a
The Frightful Four proved to be one of the most formidable menaces that the Fantastic Four had yet encountered. The Frightful Four raided the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building headquarters, and affixed the Wizard's anti-gravity discs to the four - minus Johnny, but with Alicia Masters, who managed to alert the Torch with the Invisible Girl's flare gun. Johnny soon appeared and forced the Wizard to use his anti-grav ship to free his team members before they floated into airless space. Then, together they beat the Frightful Four until the Wizard and the Sandman exploded the Wizard's ship as a distraction, and escaped.[9] Later, kidnapping the Invisible Girl, they lured the Fantastic Four to a Pacific atoll where they rigged an experimental "Q-bomb" to detonate. The Fantastic Four narrowly escaped.[11] Weeks later, the Frightful Four made their third attempt. Capturing the Thing, the Wizard used his "id machine" to simulate the Thing's natural tendencies toward violence and brainwash him into obeying the Wizard's commands. The Fantastic Four finally managed to subdue the Frightful Four, then all but Medusa were turned over to the authorities.[12]
In his continued quest to crush the Fantastic Four, the Wizard has tried many iterations of the Frightful Four and has very rarely operated outside the Frightful Four. The Wizard engineered the Sandman's escape from prison, and provided him with a design for a new costume.[13] With the Trapster and Sandman, he battled Medusa.[14] He formed a partnership with Mysterio, and they battled the Torch and Spider-Man, but were foiled by Spider-Man.[15] He battled the Fantastic Four alone,[16] and later battled them once again with the Frightful Four.[17] With the Trapster and Sandman, he invaded the Fantastic Four headquarters, where they encountered Annihilus.[18] The Wizard replaced Medusa with Thundra in the Frightful Four, and they battled the Fantastic Four and Medusa.[19] However, Thundra also ended up betraying him and allying herself with the Fantastic Four as Medusa did.[20] With the Trapster and Sandman, the Wizard battled the Fantastic Four again.[21]
The Wizard, Trapster, and Sandman eventually captured the Fantastic Four. The Frightful Four held auditions for a fourth member of the Frightful Four.
With the Frightful Four, the Wizard later captured Spider-Man and
When the Sandman appeared to give up his life of crime, the Wizard formed a new Frightful Four with
Finally, when the Fantastic Four's popularity reached an all-time low, the Wizard decided it was time to re-form the Frightful Four once more. No longer motivated by petty jealousy, the Wizard believed the Fantastic Four to be the source of all his troubles, his fall from grace.[
Wizard plays a small role in the "
The Wizard is among the characters recruited in
During the Secret Invasion storyline, Wizard is one among many of supervillains who rejoined The Hood's crime syndicate and attacked a Skrull force.[42]
During the Dark Reign storyline, Wizard joins with the Hood's gang in an attack on the New Avengers, who were expecting the Dark Avengers instead.[43]
Wizard later appeared as a member of the Intelligencia.[44][45] Along with a new Frightful Four, the Wizard attacks the Baxter Building to capture Reed Richards. While the Red Hulk, who came to stop the villains, is distracted by the Thing and an open portal to the Negative Zone, Reed is captured.[46]
Lyra and She-Hulk went around hunting for the remaining members of Intelligencia. Wizard was the first to be apprehended by Lyra and She-Hulk, brought to Bruce Banner, and imprisoned.[47] Wizard managed to escape from Bruce Banner's detention cell and attacked Lyra during her prom. His surprise attack had Lyra on the defensive until She-Hulk arrived and defeated Wizard with his own weapons.[48]
He is committed to the P.A.V.L.O.V. Metahuman Psychiatric Facility, following the events of World War Hulks. Reed Richards visits the Wizard there, and informs him that Whitman's clone is in the care of Richards' family.[49] Later after the death of the Human Torch and the reformation of the Fantastic Four as the Future Foundation, rogue agents of A.I.M break the Wizard out of the P.A.V.L.O.V. facility.[50]
When the Sinister Six attacked the Intelligencia, Wizard tried to reason with Sandman due to their old friendship, but this ended when Doctor Octopus used the Zero Cannon that the Intelligencia were using to send Wizard into the upper atmosphere.[51]
MODOK Superior was able to revive Wizard and the other Intelligencia members where they began to formulate their plans after their predicted shatter of the superhero community.[52]
Wizard's mind began to shows signs of dementia, due to punishment inflicted by Black Bolt,
The Wizard subsequently joined the plans of the behind-the-scenes villain known as 'the Quiet Man' to destroy the Fantastic Four, but after his clone rejected him in favour of his friends, followed by him witnessing the scale of the Quiet Man's plans, the Wizard decided to aid the FF against the villain so that he could ensure that his 'son' would grow up in peace.[56]
Wizard then appears talking to MODOK Superior when he hears that Doctor Doom has gone straight, only to confront him. During the battle, he manages to outsmart him with his upgraded tech until Doctor Doom in his version of the Iron Man armor becomes distracted by a vision, giving him the chance to defeat him. Wizard then tells MODOK Superior what happened to other supervillains until Doctor Doom arrives and defeats all of them.[57]
During the "Opening Salvo" part of the Secret Empire storyline, Wizard is recruited by Baron Helmut Zemo to join the Army of Evil.[58]
Bentley 23
The Fantastic Four managed to find an adolescent clone of the Wizard and rescued it from a super robot the Wizard made.
Skills and abilities
Bentley Wittman has no true superpowers, but he is a gifted genius with Ph.Ds for all sciences, particularly in the field of physics. In addition to being an inventor and engineer, Wittman is also a talented stage magician, escapologist, and disguise artist.[62]
Equipment
The Wizard constructed a number of devices for which he employs in his criminal activities:
- His anti-gravity discs can lift several hundred pounds each and be remotely controlled within that armor's relays. These give him the ability to fly, which is accomplished without wings. He was able to create a basic one using materials from the prison workshop.
- His gauntlets (alternatively referred to as Wonder Gloves) could unleash potent electrical blasts or utilize directed gravitational fields to strengthen those hands. The gloves' strength are unknown. They even also launch air vortexes for engulfing their targets known as "Typhoon-Spheres".
- His body armor provides him with physical protection, generates a force shield around himself, and mimics powers of the Human Torch. The helmet possesses built-in circuitry that allows a technopathic linkto his suit, thus manipulating it by mental commands.
Weakness
He suffers from a non-lethal nut allergy (especially peanuts) and consuming them causes his face to swell up.[63]
Other characters named Wizard
There are other characters who have also called themselves Wizard:
All Winners Comics #17, which was published in 1945, 17 years before the first appearance of the Fantastic Four villain of the same name, depicts a legend about the eldest member of the Carreaux family, who jilted the daughter of a magic practitioner in favor of marrying a different girl. When the jilted girl committed suicide, her brother killed that Carreaux man, creating a curse which held that if an elder Carreaux were to marry, a dead wizard and his witch partner would appear on their wedding night and kill that Carreaux. By 1946, the Carreaux family butler Frank Lavalle took advantage of that legend when he heard that Philip Carreaux was going to marry a woman named Marguerite, with whom Frank was also in love. While he would pose as the Wizard, an unnamed female accomplice would pose as the Witch. When his brother Dale returned home from military service, Philip met William Naslund and Fred Davis where he told them about the curse involving the Wizard and the Witch. William Naslund and Fred Davis changed into their Captain America and Bucky outfits where they explored the bayou finding any evidence of the Wizard and the Witch. Captain America and Bucky encountered the Wizard who disappeared from Captain America's grasp. Upon finding Philip dead with a knife in his back, Captain America and Bucky encountered the Wizard in another canoe, though he had to let him go to save Bucky from an approaching alligator. When Captain America and Bucky catch up to the Witch and subdue her, she was shot dead as Dale freed Marguerite. Upon examining the Wizard's footprints, Captain America discovered that it matched Frank Lavalle's shoes as Captain America apprehends him. After Frank Lavalle confessed to his motives and the murders, Captain America handed Frank over to the authorities.[64]
Following the 1984 Secret Wars miniseries, which concluded with the Thing left on the planet Battleworld, he comes across the kingdom of Leenn, which is being terrorized by the Wizard, who is Laann's version of Doctor Doom, whereas Laann is revealed to be that planet's version of Doctor Doom's native country of Latveria.[65] Thing and his ally, a warrior named Tarianna, vanquishes the Wizard.[66]
Other versions
House of M
In the alternate timeline of the 2005 storyline "House of M", Wizard is seen as a member of Hood's Masters of Evil.[67]
Marvel 1602
In 1602: Fantastick Four, the 17th century version of the Wizard is self-described as "the greatest scientist alive in the year 1602". He claims to have been captain of a ship that reached the edge of the world and found a golden city, with the "Four Most Frightful" as his crew. Shortly before arriving in Atlantis with Otto von Doom, he admits that this was an exaggeration.[68]
Marvel Zombies: Dead Days
A zombified version of Wizard appears in Marvel Zombies: Dead Days alongside the Mole Man, and is eventually infected by the zombie Mr. Fantastic.[69]
MC2
In the
JLA/Avengers
In 2003 Marvel/DC crossover JLA/Avengers, the Wizard is among the enthralled villains defending Krona's stronghold when the heroes assault it. He is seen fighting the Black Condor.[72]
In other media
Television
- The Wizard appears in the Fantastic Four (1978) episode "Frightful Four."[citation needed] This version possesses supernatural powers instead of technological weapons.
- The Wizard appears in the Spider-Man episode "Under the Wizard's Spell", voiced by Brad Crandall.[citation needed]
- The Wizard appears in the Fantastic Four (1994) episode "And the Wind Cries Medusa", voiced by Ron Perlman.[citation needed]
- The Wizard appears in the Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes episode "Frightful", voiced by Jonathan Holmes.[citation needed]
- The Wizard appears in Ultimate Spider-Man, voiced by Tom Kenny.[73][74] This version is a member of the Frightful Four.
- The Wizard makes a non-speaking cameo appearance in the Avengers Assemble episode "The Avengers Protocol".[citation needed]
- Bentley Wittman will appear in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.[75]
Video games
- The Wizard appears in Captain America and The Avengers.[citation needed]
- The Wizard appears as a mini-boss in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, voiced by Danny Mann.[citation needed]
- The Wizard appears as an unlockable character in Lego Marvel Super Heroes.[citation needed]
- The Wizard appears in Marvel Heroes, voiced by Rick D. Wasserman.[74]
- The Wizard appears as an unlockable character in Lego Marvel's Avengers.[citation needed]
References
- ISBN 9780780809772.
- ISBN 978-1-4654-7890-0.
- ISBN 978-1465455505.
- ^ Strange Tales #102
- ^ Strange Tales #105
- ^ Strange Tales #110
- ^ Strange Tales #118
- ^ Fantastic Four #37
- ^ a b Fantastic Four #36
- ISBN 0-8160-1356-X.[1]
- ^ Fantastic Four #38
- ^ Fantastic Four #41-43
- ^ Fantastic Four #57
- ^ Marvel Super-Heroes #15
- ^ The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #4
- ^ Fantastic Four #78
- ^ Fantastic Four #94
- ^ Marvel Team-Up #2
- ^ Fantastic Four #129-130
- ^ Fantastic Four #133
- ^ Fantastic Four #148
- ^ Fantastic Four #176-178
- ^ Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #42; Fantastic Four #218
- ^ The Avengers #231-232
- ^ The Avengers #235
- ^ Fantastic Four #300
- ^ Fantastic Four #301
- ^ Fantastic Four #326-333
- ^ Avengers Spotlight #26
- ^ The Spectacular Spider-Man #158; The Amazing Spider-Man #327; The Avengers #312
- ^ The Spectacular Spider-Man #159
- ^ The Avengers #313
- ^ Avengers West Coast #55
- ^ The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #24
- ^ The Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #10
- ^ Peter Parker: Spider-Man vol. 2 #12. Marvel Comics.
- ^ Fantastic Four #514
- ^ Fantastic Four #515
- ^ Fantastic Four #516
- ^ The New Avengers #33
- ^ Richard George (2010-07-07). "IGN Interview: Marvel's Massive Avengers Conspiracy". Uk.comics.ign.com. Archived from the original on June 17, 2007. Retrieved 2011-04-12.
- ^ Secret Invasion #6
- ^ The New Avengers #50
- ^ Fall of the Hulks: Alpha
- ^ Fall of the Hulks: Gamma
- ^ Hulk vol. 2 #19
- ^ She-Hulks #2
- ^ She-Hulks #4
- ^ Fantastic Four #579
- ^ a b FF #1
- ^ The Amazing Spider-Man #676
- ^ Deadpool vol. 2 #55
- ^ FF vol. 2 #6
- ^ Superior Carnage #3
- ^ Superior Carnage #5
- ^ Fantastic Four #642-645
- ^ Infamous Iron Man #6-7
- ^ Captain America: Steve Rogers #16
- ^ a b Fantastic Four #570
- ^ Fantastic Four #580
- ^ FF #3
- ^ The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Vol 1 #12 (December 1983)
- ^ Marvel TV: Galactus - The Real Story Vol 1 #1 (April 2009)
- ^ All Winners Comics #17. Marvel Comics.
- ^ Thing #12. Marvel Comics.
- ^ Thing #12 - 13. Marvel Comics.
- ^ House of M: Masters of Evil #1. Marvel Comics.
- ^ Marvel 1602: Fantastick Four #1-5. Marvel Comics.
- ^ Marvel Zombies: Dead Days #1. Marvel Comics.
- ^ Fantastic Five #2. Marvel Comics.
- ^ Fantastic Five #3 - 4. Marvel Comics.
- ^ JLA/Avengers #4. Marvel Comics.
- ^ "Sneak Peek: 'Ultimate Spider-Man' on Disney XD (Stills, Video) - StitchKingdom.com". www.stitchkingdom.com. Archived from the original on 2012-03-08.
- ^ a b "Wizard Voices (Fantastic Four)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved January 27, 2024. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its opening and/or closing credits and/or other reliable sources of information.
- ^ Nolan, Liam (July 22, 2022). "SDCC: Marvel Studios Animation Panel Reveals Future of X-Men '97, What If and Marvel Zombies". Comic Book Resources. Archived from the original on July 22, 2022. Retrieved July 22, 2022.
External links
- Wizard at Marvel.com
- Wizard's Warriors at The Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe
- Wizard from MC2 timeline at The Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe